Recently, a circuit board on which a wide variety of electronic components are mounted has been equipped in, e.g., a sophisticated automobile. A connector is significantly larger than other electronic components, and covers a large area of the circuit board. Thus, so-called “surface mounting” is particularly desired. In order to reduce the size of a circuit structure including the circuit board, and to reduce a cost, a surface mount connector has been proposed, which is mounted on a surface of a circuit board (see, e.g., Patent Documents 1 and 2).
The surface mount connector is mounted on one surface of the circuit board, and therefore electronic components, other surface mount connectors, etc. can be mounted on the other surface of the circuit board. Consequently, both surfaces of the circuit board can be effectively used, and a mounting area can be doubled.
The surface mount connector of Patent Document 1 includes an insulating housing; and a plurality of conductive terminals, each of which has a held section at which the housing holds the terminals, and in which one end of the terminal serves as a mounting-side end at which the terminal is mounted on the board. In addition, the housing includes a hollow section which is positioned between an upper surface of the housing and each of the held sections, and which reduces thermal conduction from the upper surface of the housing toward the held section side.
The surface mount connector of Patent Document 2 includes an insulating housing which holds a plurality of terminals connected to the circuit board, and which is fixed to the circuit board. In addition, the insulating housing includes a rear wall section which is vertically arranged on the circuit board, and which can hold the plurality of terminals with the terminals being arranged at least in a direction along the circuit board. The rear wall section includes a horizontal slit section which penetrates the rear wall section in its thickness direction, and which extends in the direction along the circuit board. The horizontal slit section is provided below an upper most one of a plurality of terminal injection holes formed in the rear wall section.
When surface-mounting components on a circuit board, cream solder is typically used. That is, the cream solder is first applied to a soldering section of a printed wire of the circuit board. Subsequently, the circuit board is placed in a high-temperature furnace with the components being mounted on the cream solder. Then, the cream solder is melted for a short period of time, and then the components are soldered to the circuit board.
According to such a technique, an amount of the cream solder can be finely adjusted, and the components can be highly integrated even in a high-density integrated circuit (VLSI) by soldering without causing a solder bridge.